Who do you say I am?

And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”… And he (Jesus) began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Mark 8:29,31-33

Peter had dropped everything to follow this man. He had walked with Jesus, seen His miracles, listened to His teachings. Peter had even been given the authority to heal and cast out demons himself along with the other disciples as they went into villages two by two. How could Peter get it so right and so wrong at the same time?

Because he was thinking in human terms. He was trying to make Christ do and be who he wanted Him to be. Don’t we do the same? In our own way of thinking and our narrow vision, we an be like a someone looking through a telescope. We only see what is looming in front of us. Our peripheral vision is cut off. Our humanness blocks us from seeing the whole picture.

It is tempting when things are not going smoothly, or something horrific happens to ask “How can God allow this? Isn’t He a loving, caring God?” How could He allow a child to be taken way too early, or cancer eat away at a mother of five or a church to be burned to the ground in an act of arson? Why would He let a Christian, deeply involved in the church and an obedient tither, lose their livelihood or a teenager with so much promise become paralyzed in a wreck due to a drunk driver?

As a mother with a child who was born with multiple birth defects and had to undergo so many surgeries in his childhood, if I had asked “How?” or “Why?”, I’d have gone nuts. My heart would have become so embittered and my clenched fist too weary from shaking it at Heaven. But somehow, in His grace, the Lord let me see Him there in each hospital room, in each milestone towards normalcy my son achieved. He let me witness tiny miracles right when I needed to see them, and brought people into our lives that would support, pray and comfort us. I can honestly say, each time I was tempted to ask why our son, Christ thwarted that question with yet another example that He was right there with us through it all- and that was what mattered most. He told us plainly.

Jesus had told Peter what he didn’t want to hear. Things were going to unfold in a way Peter found horrifying. But in the end, Jesus triumphed, death was defeated and His Holy Spirit given. No matter what we go through, God has a purpose in each situation in our lives, even if it is just to hold us close to Him through the bad stuff. Who do you say Christ is? He is the one with the Master plan who know what is and what will be.